An unexpected suprise

We had mentally closed the month already last week, but then something unexpected happened. Well, not truly unexpected, since the same event occurs every year, but this year the timing was different for reasons we won’t go into here. One of our funds paid its annual yield. We hadn’t included this in our budgeting, and the exact payment date varies from year to year. This time it landed in the final week of May, and it changed everything.

From that fund we received 1012,19 €, which alone was enough to turn May into our best month ever in passive income. What we expected to be the third‑best month suddenly became the clear number one, and by a wide margin. Other passive income this week came from: 

• 11,55 € from Puuilo
• 3,64 € from Gladstone Commercial Reit
• 5,84 € from Gladstone Investment Corp BDC
• 40,89 € from Tele2
• 1,74 € from Bank of Montreal
• 4,36 € from Boston Pizza Royalties
• 16,52 € from Canadian Net Reit

Otherwise the week was a typical end‑of‑month week with the usual monthly payers and a couple of smaller additions. Total passive income for the week was 1096,73 €, which is excellent. Without the special event the week would actually have been quite weak.

In total, May ended at 3205,71 €, almost 1000 € more than our second‑best month. we now have two consecutive all‑time best months.

 

Activity on the “building the future” front was unusually quiet for us, but not completely at a standstill. Even during slower weeks we try to reinvest cash back into the portfolio quickly, and this week we still managed to grow our future income. The pace was just much calmer than usual. In the end we made only one purchase, but a purchase nonetheless: 14 shares of Kesko A at 20,59285 €. One reason for the slower activity is that we need to keep some cash aside for upcoming tax payments later in the summer. We won’t go into the details here, but it does mean we can’t reinvest quite as aggressively as usual.

 

 

 

High Dividends, Light Purchases, and a New Annual Lead

Dividendwise this week was exceptional thanks to one of our largest annual dividend payers. Otherwise the week was fairly ordinary. We received dividends on three out of five days, and one of them was a milestone for us: our first ever dividend from Estonia.

Tallinna Vesi paid us 61,56 €. At the moment this is our only Estonian holding, and part of the reason we bought it was to test how the dividend process works in practice with our bank. Everything went smoothly, which is not something you can take for granted with European companies. Some countries withhold too much tax, and then you need to deal with paperwork to reclaim the excess. Estonia is not one of those cases. Because of this positive experience we will likely increase our exposure to the Estonian market in the future.

The rest of the dividends this week were:

• 47,26 € from Saratoga Investment
• 655,43 € from Mandatum
• 1 share of Main Street capital worth of 43,53 €
• 15,52 € as a remainder from MAIN DRIP
• 26,16 € from Waypoint reit

The total amount of dividends this week was 849,46 €, which is a very solid result. With this, May has now become our third‑best month ever and the second‑best month of this year. The current total for May stands at 2093,59 €.

The remaining expected dividends for the month are not large enough to change the ranking, so May will almost certainly stay in third place overall. Still, crossing the 2000 € mark is always a satisfying milestone and shows that the portfolio continues to move in the right direction.

Our total dividends for the year have now passed the level we reached at the end of August last year. So far we have received 7290,50 €. At the end of August last year the total was 7102,61 €.

In other words, we are more than three months ahead of last year’s pace. From June onward the growth rate of our dividend accumulation will slow down.

On the purchasing side we were not as active as last week, even though we received more dividends. We made only two purchases, but both were relatively larger than usual. We bought 5 shares of Kone at 51,70 € and 17 shares of Eurocommercial Properties at 28,57529 €.

The Kone purchase will not increase our 2026 income, as the company has already paid its 2025 dividend. Eurocommercial Properties, however, will increase our 2026 income because it pays its dividend in July.

 

Second full week of May 2026

This week we received dividends on three different days. Most of the income came in euros and Australian dollars, and on Friday we received the usual mid‑month payments in US and Canadian dollars. Here is the full breakdown:

• 34,20 € from Huhtamäki
• 133,45 € from Signify
• 75,76 € from Washington H Soul Pattinson
• 7,42 € from Northland Power
• 26,53 € from Realty Income 
• 53,48 € from Omega Healthcare Investors
• 3,06 € from Apple Hospitality Reit
• 37,73 € from Main Street Capital 

This week’s dividend income totaled 371,63 €, which is a solid amount. Altogether we have accumulated 1237,09 € so far in May, and there are still one or two larger dividends on the way, along with several smaller ones in the tens‑of‑euros range. With these included, we expect May to become our third‑best month ever, with total passive income slightly above 2000 euros.

Year to date we have collected 6434 € in passive income. This is roughly the same amount we had reached by the end of July last year, so our pace is excellent. In fact, we have never earned this much passive income this early in the year. The chart below illustrates this clearly, as the 2026 cumulative line is well ahead of previous years at the same point in time.

 

Earlier weeks were fairly quiet in terms of new purchases. This week the pace picked up a little, even though we did not start any kind of shopping spree. These are the transactions we made:

• 1 unit of Arvo Sijoitusosuuskunta @80,40 €
• 25 shares of A&W Food Services of Canada @35,5616 CAD
• 9,94 shares of Emera @71,83099 CAD
• 19 shares of  EuroCommercial Properties @27,44636 €
• 141 Shares of IPH Limited @3,5656 AUD
• 2,5425 shares of Verizon @47,3353 USD
• 0,2055 shares of Bank of Montreal @210,17 CAD
• 1,6988 shares of Dynex Capital @13,0795 USD
• 26 shares of Kesko A @20,37692 €

This week’s purchases also added a nice layer of diversification. The buys were spread across several sectors and regions, and the additions outside North America helped balance the portfolio’s geographical weight. IPH Limited stood out as the most unusual new holding, while Arvo Sijoitusosuuskunta and Kesko A brought a bit of domestic flavor. Altogether the purchases were small but meaningful steps that strengthened the portfolio and increased our 2026 dividend income by roughly 60 euros.

 

First full week of May 2026

The first full week of May was an unusual one for us. Most of the income arrived in euros rather than in other currencies. We only received a small portion of April’s interest payments in foreign currencies, and the rest of the week’s income was entirely in euros. Here is the breakdown:

• 11,57 € from April interests
• 37,39 € from cooperatives
• 672,21 € from Sampo
• 23,80 from Cibus
• 0,52 from PostNL N.V
• 15,56 from Acomo

It was a very strong week overall. Our total income reached 761,05 €, which is exceptionally high thanks to Sampo’s annual dividend.

 

 

This week we made a couple of new investments. We added a small portion of OP-Eurooppa Indeksi A, even though it does not generate any income. This is part of an automated setup where the bonus payments from OP are directed into this fund.

Our second purchase was Tallinna Vesi, which we bought using the dividends received from Sampo. The details are below:

0,085 units of OP-Eurooppa Indeksi A at 249,41176 € 61 shares of AS Tallinna Vesi at 11,68279 €

The Tallinna Vesi purchase will increase our 2026 income by 29,55 €.

 

 

End of the April

The last week of April was fairly ordinary. Nothing unusual happened, and everything went as expected. We anticipated reaching a new all time best monthly dividend income, and we achieved exactly that. These were the dividends we received.

In April;

• 3,62 € from Gladstone Commercial Reit
• 5,79 € from Gladstone investment BDC
• 11,38 € from Canada Imperial Bank
• 4,38 € Boston Pizza Royalties
• 14,62 € from LTC Properties 
• 16,62 € from Canadian Net Reit 

In May:

• 20,34 € from Dynex Capital
• 29,19 € from AT&T 
• 22,67 € from Verizon

In total we received 128,61 € this week, which is a typical result for us. This brings April to 2256,84 € and May to 72,20 €. April is now officially our best dividend month ever, surpassing May 2022 by 20,46 €. Compared to last year, April’s dividend income increased by an impressive 86,39 %.

 

And as usual, we reinvested the dividends we received. The purchases were small, but even small additions help increase our expected cashflow. These are the transactions we made:

• 8,1527 shares of Dynex Capital @13,73775 USD
• 8,8086 shares of Blue Owl Capital @11,23671 USD
• 2,7205 shares of Apple Hospitality Reit @13,69965 USD
• 0,2489 shares of Bank Of Montreal @207,55323 CAD
• 2,2680 shares of Ares Capital @19,55467 USD

The purchases were modest, but they still move us forward. We have some large expenses on the horizon, which is why we are currently holding back on investing and building up cash to cover those upcoming costs.